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St. Petersburg City Theater brings back camps, new board to halt closing

 
The St. Petersburg City Theatre is renewing its summer classes and embarking on a fundraising campaign. DIRK SHADD   |   Times

The St. Petersburg City Theatre is renewing its summer classes and embarking on a fundraising campaign. DIRK SHADD | Times
Published June 6, 2017

By Divya Kumar

Times Staff Writer

ST. PETERSBURG — Summer camps have resumed and the shows will likely go on at the St. Petersburg City Theatre, the 92-year-old community stage company that had decided to shutter its building and cease its productions in the face of financial challenges.

After parents began contacting Mardi Bessolo, a former member of the theater's board and a parent of member of the theater, sharing stories of what the theater meant to their kids, she said she had to do something.

Sommer Grant told her about the turning point in their 10-year-old son Tanner's life when he was cast as Tiny Tim in A Christmas Carol.

"He's the kid who doesn't play any sports," Grant said. "He doesn't fit in with fourth grade boys. ... This is his sport. This is his baseball. This is his football. ... He came home to me and he started crying and saying he was thankful, 'even the adults the adults are just like me.'"

Lisa Marone thought of her 9-year-old niece who had to have transfusions for ulcerative colitis.

"She can go on stage and escape it," Marone said. "She can be another character."

Bessolo, the CFO of Bessolo Design Group, had a plan. Until recently, the board had mainly served as an operating board, she said, selecting the productions and recently concerned with paying off debts. Now, Bessolo said, the theater could change its business model if its board had a fundraising focus.

"Previously, it was a membership-based theater," she said. "Lots in this area are membership based but at the end of the day, one person can't fund raise for an organization."

Most theaters, she said, receive about 30 to 40 percent of their revenue through fundraising and donations.

So she began calling up parents and those willing to help and organized a meeting and started a #savecitytheater campaign.

When Susan Demers got the call, she knew she had to get involved.

It wasn't the fact that she or her daughter, whom Bessolo had gone to high school with, had performed on the stage in the now-decaying building.

The driving force behind her decision were her 8 and 11-year-old granddaughters who were upset about the cancellation of summer programs that had kickstarted their acting careers.

Bessolo presented the group with the history of the theater's financial challenges, from its heavy reliance on volunteers to its problematic building.

"It's been neglected, and it needs help, but its not in a bad place," Grant said. "It's saveable."

Grant, whose husband, Tyson Grant, is the executive chef at Parkshore Grill, said it was important to start mobilizing community connections to seek bigger donors.

Bessolo, president of the new board, said that will be part of the board's main strategy. The fundraising will take places in two phases, she said, the first of which will be to raise about $300,000 by December to be able to go back into operation by next year and the second to raise about $900,000 to repair the building.

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So far, she said, donations from individuals have come in after news of the theater closing spread, but their goal will be to focus on asking corporations and foundations.

"No arts organization can make it on the sales alone," Demers said. "There is a labor of love aspect to the fundraising piece of it. We want to teach that artistic experience is valuable, but I'm not sure that we could ever charge enough to pay for that continuous overhead."

"We have to pick up the baton and take the next leg of the race," Marone, vice president of the new board, said.

Demers said she believes the focused fundraising efforts can help bring back the theater.

"This is a long term community asset," Demers said. "Sometimes we take for granted the things that have always been there."

Contact Divya Kumar at dkumar@tampabay.com. Follow @divyadivyadivya.